


your hair is winter fire, january embers

by bnsolo



Category: IT (2017)
Genre: Canon Compliant, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, OR IS IT, Pining, Slow Burn, Unrequited Love, ben and bev have a magical friendship, ben is super touch starved, ish, this is all from ben's perspective so good luck figuring that one out, what if ben wrote january embers for bill
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-03-29 14:46:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13929279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bnsolo/pseuds/bnsolo
Summary: My heart burns there too."Ben first sees him walking down the corridor at school, head thrown back, laughter ringing over the clamour of hundreds of kids giddy with the promise of summer. He’s sandwiched between his friends, the tallest of all of them, easily a head taller than the small boy on his right, laughing as he throws his arm around the one with the brown curls. They’reallso bright, so beautiful, cocooned in the careless comfort of their easy friendship, but Ben can barely look athim, he glows so brightly. They walk past Ben as he struggles at his locker and out into the sunlight. When the light hits him, his hair lights on fire, a burning halo that sets Ben’s heart alight too."





	1. Winter Fire

**Author's Note:**

> can i get a big 'hell yeah' for my first fic in two months
> 
> playlist that goes with this: https://open.spotify.com/user/frankie.stein722/playlist/17dtASZops0royU2qFPgxF?si=3spaaFvGSYCaLrorhoBQlQ

Ben first sees him walking down the corridor at school, head thrown back, laughter ringing over the clamour of hundreds of kids giddy with the promise of summer. He’s sandwiched between his friends, the tallest of all of them, easily a head taller than the small boy on his right, laughing as he throws his arm around the one with the brown curls. They’re _all_ so bright, so beautiful, cocooned in the careless comfort of their easy friendship, but Ben can barely look at _him,_ he glows so brightly. They walk past Ben as he struggles at his locker and out into the sunlight. When the light hits him, his hair lights on fire, a burning halo that sets Ben’s heart alight too. For a moment, the boy with the fire-light hair turns, glances over his shoulder for a reason even he can’t name, and he and Ben make eye contact for one glorious second, burning blue locking on to brown. He smiles, and Ben cannot smile back, heart too full to move. His friend with the glasses reaches up to ruffle his hair, and the boy turns back to push him playfully away. Ben is struck dumb, rooted to the spot. _This is what being hit by lightning feels like,_ he thinks. Blushing, he turns away.

They don’t have any classes together, and even if they did, it’s summer. Three months of suffocating heat, shirts sticking to his back, slapping at mosquitoes, and not even a glimpse of the boy with the red hair. Sure, Ben might spot him at the drug store buying ice cream or comics with those friends of his, if Ben leaves his room at any point, which he won’t because what would he do if he did? The only place he’d go is the library, where no-one under the age of 30 will be with the weather like it is, and nowhere else if he doesn’t want to run into Bowers and his goons. A whole summer spent reading in the stuffy heat of his room, or in the cool silence of the library. Alone. Never mind, he’ll be okay. It’s not like he knows what its like to have friends, so how can he miss having them?

Ben has to admit though, sitting in the library a couple of days into what he doesn’t know yet will be the most important summer of his life for a variety of reasons, that it might be possible to miss something you’ve never even had in the first place. The library has that cathedral hush about it, even on a Saturday morning in summer, the only sounds the industrial click of the librarian’s keyboard and the pages of Ben’s book turning over, the only movement the swirling of dust motes in the shafts of sunlight that warm the back of his head.

Breaking the sanctity of this holy place of reading and quiet reflection, this shrine to solitude, comes screaming and laughter and the ringing of bicycle bells, floating in on the summer’s breeze through half-open windows. The librarian looks up from her screen and tuts. Ben glances up and out of the window, heart soaring and face growing hot as he sees them. As he sees _him._ They’re racing each other, full of joy and the kind of energy poor ungainly Ben has never known, screaming round the corner near the library. He’s out in front, miles ahead of the others on the biggest silver bike Ben has ever seen in his life, flying like he can’t stop, like the force of his happiness is propelling him forward faster than he can control. He’s stood up on pedals, leaning over the handlebars with a determined glint in his eye Ben can see as the road swings closer to the library, a glint that says he’s aiming for take-off, for outer-space orbit. “ _Hi-yo silver, away!_ ” Ben can just hear him yell, and even though he doesn’t know what he means, he grins to himself anyway. Their enthusiasm is dangerously infectious, urging Ben to throw away the book he’s been lost in for the last hour, run out of the library doors, disturbing all the other quiet, studious readers, and join that mysterious, fierce little group overflowing with life and youth. The others fly past, and Ben can just hear the boy with the glasses yell after their leader, a flash of silver and red in the distance: “Slow down, Bill, your old lady bike’s too fast for us!”

 _Bill._ Ben repeats the name to himself, tasting the syllable in his head, once so ordinary and now so full of meaning. _Bill._ Laughing, flying past, red hair aflame. _Bill._

He takes the post-card from the librarian with trembling fingers, reckless idea forming. He blushes as he scribbles a few practise lines on a scrap of paper, crossing out and rewriting, over and over, until he has it. Not perfect, not by any means, but how could he capture the dizzy, bright, hot feeling that has overcome him so quickly with mere words? No words could ever, ever describe the impact those brief few glimpses of that boy have had on Ben Hanscom’s young life. He’s a sensible boy. He knows that love at first sight isn’t real. He knows he’s too young to be in love. He knows there’s no chance these intense emotions sweeping over him could ever be mutual, no chance in Hell. His fingers don’t seem to agree, however, because he’s printing the words that inadequately but sincerely reflect his feelings onto the postcard with neat, shaky letters. He signs it ‘a secret admirer’, not pausing to reflect how dumb he is, how cheesy and stupid and lame and pathetic and a thousand other things. He adds a name, _his_ name, and then stops. _Stupid, stupid, stupid!_ Ben doesn’t know his beloved’s last name. _Never mind,_ he laughs to himself. _It’s not like you were gonna actually_ post _it. Right?_

He rereads it. Short, but sweet. They learned about haikus in their last English lesson, so he thought he’d try to write one. It wasn’t perfect, it probably wasn’t even good, just the best he could do.

  _Your hair is winter fire_

_January embers_

_My heart burns there too._

Ben sighs. Bill burns behind his eyes, a blur, an angel flying on silver wings. Ben blinks, trying to get the image out of his brain, and turns back to his book, slipping the postcard into his pocket carefully. His book calls him back. _A History of_ _Old_ _Derry._ Okay, yeah, he knows it sounds boring, but moving to a new place excited him, all the stories he didn’t know, the character of the town just waiting for him to discover, the old buildings all hiding the secrets of a hundred generations. He liked to pick out the parts of the town that were older by their architecture, wonder who used to live and work in them, what their lives were like hundreds of years ago. _Wow, I’m such a nerd._

 _A History of Old Derry_ isn’t exactly light-hearted reading, though. It seems to Ben that the history of Derry is mostly made up of floods, legendary snow-storms, and every so often, some horrible disaster. The pages detailing the explosion at the Derry Iron Works give Ben a sick feeling in his stomach, a feeling of dread that goes right to the core of him. He sees the tree, the little head perched in the branches like a gruesome parody of a bird’s nest, and closes the book with a snap, gorge rising, all pleasant thoughts of tall red-haired blue eyed boys driven from his head. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees a flash of red, and turns.

***

 

When it’s over, he can barely walk. He stumbles, unheeding, through the library double doors and out into the glaring sunshine, forgetting the great danger of being seen out in public, forgetting that’s he’s being hunted by a human being as well as a – _no. No. Don’t think about it, it wasn’t real, it was just a -_

“Where’re you off to, Tits?”

Ben turns, numb to fear. Bowers lounges in the shade of the war memorial, knife in hand. Ben turns to run, already aware of the futility but too exhausted to think of a better plan, and runs right in Victor Criss, who knocks him back with a lazy fist, taking the air from Ben’s lungs and all thoughts of headless boys and clowns from his mind.

***

Ben stumbles down the river, ears ringing from the punches, half-blind with pain and river water. His feet are cold and numb from the water, skin stinging with a thousand tiny scratches, and his stomach more than stinging, screaming with pain as the water worms its way into the deep, ‘H’-shaped cut. Finally, his legs give and he half-falls into the water, arm jolted from its socket as he flings it out to save himself. Dully through the ringing pain, he hears a voice cry: “Holy _shit,_ what happened to you?” Blinking through the water streaming into his eyes, he sees three blurry figures appear from a tunnel in the bank. _Oh, no. Please, please no,_ he thinks as a fourth emerges from the shadows, sunlight catching on his hair. As if he hasn’t been humiliated enough today.

“Are y-y-you okay?” Bill asks, the sunlight once again creating him a burning halo as he leans over Ben. _Even his stutter is beautiful. The flaw just makes him more perfect, somehow._ Ben nods weakly, knowing his appearance reveals the lie. Bill offers a hand that Ben takes, mortified, feeling lightning strike up his veins and fire into his heart at the contact, banishing the crippling pain to the back of his mind. “C-come on. L-l-let’s g-get you fu-fixed up.”

“Uh, Bill?” says the smallest of the group, black hair flopping into an anxious face. “Are you sure about that? He’s been splashing about in the river, his wounds are probably all -” He takes a deep breath as if to brace himself for the next word - “ _Infected._ ”

“What, you wanna leave the poor bastard to bleed out in the water, Eds? Don’t be a dick,” the one with the glasses replies cheerfully.

Bill pulls Ben to his feet, whose legs are weak and trembling not just from the excruciating pain in his side, and steadies him with another hand that sends the same lightning sensation singing through Ben’s shoulder. “Yu-you can ruh-ride on my b-b-bike,” he explains carefully, still half-holding Ben up. “W-w-where do you luh-live?”

Ben shakes his head firmly, light-headed but still present. “No. My mom – she can’t know -”

“He needs a hospital, Bill,” says the curly-haired boy firmly over Bill’s shoulder, frowning. Bill shakes his head.

“You huh-heard him, S-S-Stan,” he replies with grim determination. “We’ll take him to the dru-drug store. Get some b-b-bandages, or suh-something.”

“If you say so, Doctor Denbrough,” grins Glasses. Curls shrugs, giving up the fight.

The bike ride is Heaven, even with the pain. Ben doesn’t want to touch Bill at first, lost in the discovery of his second name, unable to believe the enormous coincidence, the improbable chain of events that has led him to this moment, riding on the back of Bill Denbrough’s bike. Bill glances over his shoulder, and Ben turns even more red, if that is even possible. “H-h-hold on.” Ben’s head is going to explode. He curves his arms gingerly around Bill’s hips, and his heart goes into cardiac arrest as two long-fingered, freckled hands are placed gently over his, guiding them firmly into place. Surely Bill can feel his heart beating against his back, even through Ben’s girth. Holy shit, _this can’t be happening. This_ can’t _be real._

“I’m B-B-Bill, by the wuh-way. Denbrough. The one with the g-g-glasses is Ruh-Richie, that’s S-S-Stan Uris, and th-that’s Eddie K-K-Kaspbrak.” Richie turns to wave as he rides his bike recklessly fast over the bumpy earth, but the other two don’t react to their names. Ben nods at Richie by way of acknowledgement, still too wrapped up in the feeling of Bill’s hips under his fingers to think of much else. The bike is even bigger up close, a rattling silver monstrosity that wobbles and shakes alarmingly until Bill gets up some speed, bumping down off the grass curb, and suddenly they’re flying over the intersection together, cool air blasting Ben’s face, Bill’s delightful whoop of giddy happiness lost into the air. They overtake the others with ease and make it to the town centre first, naturally, turning into the alley behind the drug store smoothly. Bill steadies the bike, swinging a leg over the handlebars to avoid kicking Ben, and takes his arm again as Ben stumbles off, almost falling.

“Whoa, easy thuh-there,” Bill chides gently, guiding him to sit on an abandoned crate. Ben nods dumbly, unable to form coherent thoughts. _I’m so lucky. When’d I get so damn lucky?_ “We’ll g-g-get you puh-patched up, don’t you w-w-worry,” Bill smiles, blue eyes full of warmth, enough to melt Ben right through to the floor. The others arrive with a chorus of metallic rattles and gasps for breath, complaining about Bill’s excessive speed.

“Richie, w-w-wait here,” Bill commands, gesturing the others after him. Ben watches him go, full of admiration for his strength, his beauty, his charisma. He almost doesn’t notice Richie still waiting besides him, until he pipes up: “Glad I got to meet you before you died.”

_Yeah. Me too._

 


	2. The Turtle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> big thanks to alexis for beta reading for my dumb ass: http://archiveofourown.org/users/alexislord/works

Waiting for Bill and the others to return, Richie and Ben chat idly – or rather, Richie chats, a mile a minute, as if he physically can’t keep the words in, and Ben listens and nods and laughs painfully, holding his still sluggishly bleeding side. Richie commiserates about Bowers and his gang, and tells Ben of all the horrible things they’ve done to Richie and his friends over the years, eagerly recounting broken noses in locker rooms and faces rubbed into snow like they’re cute childhood stories.

“They laid off this year though. Guess even Bowers has some soul left, ‘cause when Bill’s brother hit the news -” He stops short, freckles lost in red cheeks, and adjusts his glasses guiltily.

“Bill has a brother?” Ben asks, curiosity outweighing his sense that this is not something to pry into.

“I shouldn’t – I shouldn’t have mentioned it. Don’t say anything to Bill,” Richie begs, suddenly as nervous as Eddie Kaspbrak. Ben nods, and then looks up suddenly as the others, Bill in the lead once again, reappear round the corner, clutching boxes of bandages and anti-septic spray. Richie starts guiltily, then covers for himself with a smile.

“Hey, Big Bill! Got the equipment? Ready for the operation, Doctor K?”

Eddie glares. “You better not talk while I do this, Richie. I don’t wanna mess it up.” Ben nervously glances up at Bill for appeal, who seems to understand at once and smiles again.

“It’s okay. Eh-Eddie knows w-w-what he’s duh-doing. His m-m-mom made him t-t-take first aid cuh-classes.” Reassured, Ben lifts up the hem of his shirt slowly, irrationally embarrassed to be showing Bill his stomach. _As if he hasn’t already noticed you’re a whale,_ says a nasty little voice in his head, the one Ben tries hard to ignore. Today, the voice seems more venomous, more cruel, somehow. He probably has concussion, or something.

Richie and Eddie bicker over him as Eddie sprays the cold, stinging chemical onto the wound and Ben winces and jumps, fingernails digging into the splintering wood beneath him. Stan frowns in sympathy, but it’s Bill who places a reassuring hand on Ben’s shoulder. Once again, Ben thrown by how casually Bill responds with a touch, more gentle and nurturing than any girl Ben’s ever known (not that he’s ever been close to any girls.) And as if the thought conjured her, a red-haired girl rounds the corner, freckled and suntanned and frowning at Ben with concern. Bill starts, and his hand drops from Ben’s shoulder like it burns him. He digs in his pocket with the same hand and pulls out a crumpled dollar bill.

“Um, t-t-thanks,” he blushes, right to his own red roots. The girl smiles and holds up a pack of cigarettes with a wink.

“Even Stevens.”

Ben blinks, momentary panic giving way to inevitable disappointment as he takes in Bill’s dopey, dumbstruck expression. Of course. He should have known. _Aw, what’s wrong, fat boy? You thought he might like you_ _back_ _? Looked in the mirror recently?_

He knows her. Beverly Marsh. He has social studies with her, fifth period. She let him borrow a pencil once. She’s nice, confident, independent. She and Bill would make a really cute couple. Ben wishes Henry Bowers had completed his autograph on Ben’s stomach and slit his throat for good measure. He wishes the clown had eaten him whole. _Wait. That was a dream, wasn’t it?_

“Ben from Soc.?” she frowns at him. Somewhere in the background, Richie is urging Eddie to “Suck the wound, Doctor K! Get in there!”. “Are you okay? That looks like it hurts.”

Ben nods weakly, praying for her to leave, and feeling terrible for even wishing that much. _She’s only trying to be nice._ “Uh, yeah. I just...fell.” No need to mention Bowers, or Ben’s manly swan-dive over the fence, more than was strictly necessary in front of Bill. Then, for the second time in as many minutes, Richie’s mouth gets ahead of him.

“Yeah, right into Henry Bowers.” Ben feels his face grow hot again, but it’s Bill who comes to his rescue, as he seems to be making a habit of doing.

“Shut it, R-R-Richie.”

“Why? It’s the truth!” Bill glares at Richie from Ben’s side, and Ben’s treacherous heart beats faster again. Bev opens her mouth to say something, but before she can, Bill cuts her off.

“You know, er, we’ll t-t-t-take care of him. Thanks again, Bev.”

She backs off, a little wary and confused at the abrupt dismissal, and Ben looks up at Bill with confusion as well. For his part, Bill glances down awkwardly, avoiding the confused gazes of his friends, and finally mutters, “We’re h-h-hanging out at the q-quarry tomorrow. You should come, or wuh-whatever.” Richie tries and fails to suppress a snigger, as Eddie glances from Bill to Bev and back again, and Stan sighs. Bev gives Bill an awkward half-smile.

“I’ll be there. See you around, Ben. Richie.” Richie raises a hand at her retreating back and then lowers it slowly.

Stan gives Bill a sideways smile. “What was that about?”

Bill shrugs, still examining the asphalt with feigned unconcern. “She was ah-asking questions. B-B-Ben doesn’t n-n-need the whole school nuh-knowing about him and B-B-Bowers, _Richie._ ”

Richie stands up straight, mouth open in mock-surprise. “Who? Me? What?”

“Well, nice last minute save, anyway,” Stan shrugs as Eddie carefully begins to bandage Ben’s side. “Maybe you still have a chance with her.” Ben, who had been beaming at Bill in a haze of happiness, jumps a mile. Eddie curses.

“Stay still please!”

Bill splutters, red-faced, at Stan, who grins at him wickedly. Eddie stands up, rolling his eyes, and reaches in a pocket for some wet wipes to clean his hands. Ben’s mouth asks the question before his brain can jump on it and wrestle it into a corner to prevent the imminent disaster.

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t know about Bill and Bev Marsh?” Richie asks with undisguised delight. “Bill had her back in third grade. They kissed in the school play! The reviews said you can’t fake that kind of passion!”

Bill’s face is now the same colour as his hair, and Ben understands exactly how he feels. The suicidal urge to run and find Bowers for another ass-kicking rears its head once again. The idea that just a few days ago he didn’t know who Bill Denbrough was or that the fact he kissed Beverly Marsh wouldn’t have mattered to Ben in the slightest makes his head spin. So much can change in a few days when you’re only thirteen and fighting with destiny, though you don’t know it yet.

“Shut up, Richie,” Stanley says, smiling good-naturedly. Richie grins sheepishly, scuffing his toes against the gravel.

“Okay, okay, I’ll back off. I wonder if she’ll really turn up tomorrow?”

“Not if she’s smart. The sight of your bare chest is enough to scar someone for life.”

“Explains why you’re so nuts, Stan the Man.”

They bicker as Bill rolls his eyes and turns back to Ben. He looks away, unwilling to make contact with those piercing blue eyes again, exercising as much emotional damage control as possible.

“H-Hey, you wanna come to the quarry t-t-too? It’s fun, we go swimming, and last year we dared Ruh-Richie to jump off the c-c-c-cliff but he was too ch-chicken...” He trails, off, catching sight of Ben’s expression. Before he can ask what’s the matter, Ben forces his head up and a smile on his face.

“Sounds good.” _Oh, really? It sounds good, does it?_ _S_ _howing off all that blubber to him in the harsh light of day? Sounds real good, kid._ Ben swallows. “Shut up,” he mutters under his breath.

“W-w-what?”

“Uh, nothing.” _Great. Now I’m talking to myself. Guess Bowers hit me hard_ _er_ _than I thought._

_***_

Ben wakes the next morning with sunlight streaming into his face and a stomach full of butterflies. He barely eats breakfast, earning him a look of concern from his mother and a hand to his forehead to check his temperature, but he just tells her he’s meeting friends and doesn’t have time to eat.

“Okay, sweetie. Are these friends from school?” She’s beaming, obviously curious since he’s never had _friends_ before, but unwilling to actually say that. Ben shrugs.

“Yeah, but we’ve never really hung out before.” He doesn’t mention Bowers, of course, or the quarry, which he feels would present enough danger to outweigh her delight and cause her to sequester him in the house in fear that he'll drown. Not an entirely unreasonable fear, but also not one Ben is willing to entertain when hanging out with Bill, and the others (but mostly Bill), is on the line.

Stepping out of the house, he can’t shake the feeling that this could all end very, very badly. A lifetime of being teased, or more like outright persecuted, for his weight, has given Ben a healthy caution for any situation which could lead to embarrassment. God knows swimming with a bunch of his thirteen-year-old-boy peers is that; not to mention he’s had the old pretend-to-want-to-hang-out trick played on him enough times to recognise the warning signs. Not that had been any yesterday. Maybe he was distracted by a certain pair of blue eyes, or the wound which now lies hidden underneath neatly applied gauze, but the four boys all seemed genuine in their desire to be friends, even Richie. This could be his first chance ever to actually make some friends, and the mere promise of that, of a summer spent laughing in the sunlight with people who actually wanted to be around him, is enough to temper any misgivings. The one snag, the one dark cloud on the otherwise blue-as-Bill’s-eyes horizon, is Beverly Marsh. Ben doesn’t hate her, not by any means. Hatred is not in his nature; not even Henry Bowers carving his name into Ben’s side is enough to prompt him to such an unforgiving emotion. But he’s not as soft as he appears, either, and jealousy is not entirely out of his scope. Thinking about Bill’s catastrophic blushes and stutters when she turned her smile on him brings a sour feeling to Ben’s stomach that can’t even be turned sweet by the remembrance of Bill’s protective actions later on. It’s not that he _dislikes_ Bev; under different circumstances, he’d gladly be friends with her, can even see why, from Bill’s perspective, she’s so attractive. Ben would just rather she wasn’t in the picture at all. _Why? ‘Cause you’d have a chance with him if she weren’t? What the Hell are you smoking, fat boy?_

That voice again. That voice that some wild, fearful part of Ben imagines doesn’t come from his subconscious at all. It’s sub- _something,_ that’s for sure, though. It sounds like dark and wet and cold. Like water running down the drains.

The others are already gathered in the trees, the cliff a few metres ahead, identifiable by the fractal shimmer of the sunlight hitting the blue water. Everything Ben sees is blue these days; blue and red. Richie has grabbed Eddie’s shoes, and runs through the woods, apparently threatening to throw them in the quarry as Eddie chases him, stopping every few seconds with an asthmatic wheeze. Stan is folding his shirt neatly. As he approaches, Ben reflects that that’s what’s good about these guys; everything you need to know is on the surface, apparent, all their little quirks and peculiarities laid bare. _Speaking of laid bare._ Ben stops short, face burning, but not from the sun.

In a patch of sunlight, lit as if from a stage spotlight, Bill Denbrough pulls his shirt over his shoulders. Ben’s heart thumps, hot and heavy, in his throat, constricting it, choking off breath. He can see Bill’s shoulder blades moving beneath pale, near-translucent skin, dusted with freckles. He turns away sharply, face burning. He can’t do this. This was a bad idea. He’s going to turn around before the others see him and just go home and forget all about it and maybe then that nasty little voice will go away too -

“Hey, Ben!”

He turns. Beverly is wearing a white cotton sundress today, printed with blue flowers. A chain circles her slim neck, the key dangling against her chest. _Oh Christ, please say she didn’t see me staring at him._

“Aren’t you gonna get undressed? I wanna try jumping off this cliff,” she smiles eagerly, letting her rusted bike fall to the ground. Ben shakes his head.

“Actually, I think I’ll just stay here and read or something. I’m, uh – not such a great swimmer.”

Bev gives him a searching look, a knowing, thoughtful, sisterly gaze that makes Ben regret all the bad thoughts he’s had about her. “It’s okay, you know. They won’t tease you. I’ll make sure they don’t.” She curls one hand into a fist and slams it into the opposite palm, freckled face splitting into a playfully wicked grin. “Now let's show those sissies what’s good.”

Long fingers pluck at the buttons of her dress and she sheds it with a casual, shameless grace Ben can only dream off, then gestures to Ben himself. He tugs off his own clothes awkwardly, but determinedly, buoyed by her endless supply of bravado. She grins again, and grabs his hand, tugging him towards the cliff edge. Even if he wanted to argue, he never gets the chance. He has a brief impression of the others boys’ shocked faces speeding past, and then the ground is gone and all there is is air, Bev’s whoop lost to the wind, Richie’s shocked “ _What the fuck_ _!_ ” in the distance, and then the rushing blue consumes him.

The confusion of bubbles, rainbow jewels shattering and rushing to the silver surface, give way to cool blue-green oblivion. Bev grins at him from a metre or two away, hair almost black in the half-light, skin aglow with a tint of unearthly grass-green that makes him think, for some reason, of Mr Spock. _Green blood._ She waves silently, sending up more bubbles.

For a moment, Ben hangs in stasis, light as air for once in his life, cocooned in the soft, cool cathedral of the water, alone but for Beverly in the muffled twilight. Then another heavy splash rocks the surface and Ben registers a skinny form unfurl in the water, and the burn in his lungs that tells him to kick up for air, at the same time. When he breaks the surface, gasping as weakly as Eddie after running, he sees Bill’s face pop up near him with a rush of joy. His hair is plastered to his scalp, turned muddy brown by the waterlogging, but his eyes are still as deep and blue as the water they’re surrounded by.

“Ben! We duh-didn’t even see you g-get here!”

“Hi, Bill,” Ben replies, dumb with happiness. _This is great. This is the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me._

“ _Richie –_ no, _don’t -”_

“Look out below!”

Bill and Ben both look up in unison as Eddie flails and falls, hitting the water with an ungainly flop, clearly having just been pushed. On the cliff, they can just make out Richie bent-double, incoherent with laughter, before Stan gives him a swift hand to the back and topples him after his unfortunate victim. Richie surfaces with a dramatic gasp for air, and Eddie takes the opportunity to splash him with a cry of “ _Asshole!”_ Seconds later, Stan joins them with a far more graceful jump.

They all float in a rough circle for a second, looking at each other, drinking it in for reasons none of them could quite put their fingers on, let alone name aloud to each other. Then Bev reaches over and dunks Richie’s head in the water, “for Eddie!”, and that settles it.

All Hell breaks loose, splashes and shrieks echoing off the quarry walls, white spray flying this way and that. Somewhere in the chaos, Bev climbs her way onto Ben’s shoulders, light as a feather, and Richie onto Bill’s, and through the flying water and screams of the struggle above them, Ben and Bill grin at each other, and it seems to Ben at least that they can speak without words, that they can understand each other on some wavelength apart from the rest of the flat, stale, mundane world. The colours here are brighter than Ben’s ever seen them, green and white and blue, especially blue. Something brushes Ben’s leg under the water, soft as his mother’s kiss, and he jumps.

“Something just touched my leg!”

“What?”

Bill dives beneath the surface and comes back up dripping and grinning. “I think it’s a t-t-turtle.”

***

They dry off on the hot rocks, in sunlight that dissolves the weight Ben has so often wished to shed and warms him to his core. Never has he felt so relaxed around kids his own age, always more comfortable with adults, who were invariably charmed by his precocious intelligence and too polite to mention his size. Today, however, with them, he is no different. Just one of them. He knows he belongs without having to ask.

He sits on a rock, surrounded on all sides by the low buzz of his new friends laughing and teasing each other, and his world is complete when Bill sits down next to him lightly, smiling. His freckles have multiplied over his sunburnt shoulders, shoulders that are warm and soft as Ben discovers when one brushes against his own. Thank God he’s also burnt bright red, or Bill would see Ben’s ears glow with heat. They smile awkwardly at each other for a moment, unsure of what to say next. Richie flops down on Ben’s other side. He sets down a boom-box beside him and slides in a tape.

“Uh, Richie, no. Your taste in music is awful,” Stan groans, shaking water from his curls like a dog.

“My taste in music, like all my tastes, is highly refined,” Richie replies in his dreadful British accent. Bill laughs, shaking his head at Ben, who chuckles too.

The music blasts away, ‘Bust A Move’ by Young MC, not even on Ben’s level of enjoyable awfulness, but who cares. He’s comfortable and happy with Bill’s eyes on him, for a moment, until Bev steps out of the water and those blue eyes slide off him again. All of them are staring at Bev, but Ben feels like doing the same would violate some kind of agreement between them, of her not to laugh at him, and him not to stare at her.

Not that he could, anyway. Not with the kind of hunger he sees in Bill’s eyes, the hunger that twists Ben’s stomach into knots and sours the whole day, brings the clouds in to cover the sun. Bev’s head swings round and the boys all look away, Richie coughing transparently to cover himself, and Ben has to look away too. Look away from Bill. _Uh oh. Got your feelings hurt, fat boy? Gay boy?_

Distracted, Ben doesn’t notice Richie rummaging in his backpack until it’s too late.

“News-flash Ben! School’s out for summer!” It’s hard to tell what he’s even saying, with that incomprehensible accent that’s somewhere between British and Australian.

Ben feels the panic close in, remembering suddenly the postcard he shoved hastily in the bag the afternoon before, forgotten in the horrors of yesterday, the incriminating little poem printed neatly on it. _Time’s up, fat boy._

“Who sent you this?” Richie has it in his hand, is turning it over, and Ben moves faster than he ever has in his life, snatching the all important rectangle of stiff card from the other boy’s hand.

“No-one!” Bill looks over Ben’s shoulder, Ben can feel blue eyes on him, and he shoves the postcard back in the bag with a burning face. A reckless, giddy, thrilling feeling comes over him; he has the sudden urge to take the postcard back out and hand it to Bill right then and there, tell him he’s the most beautiful thing Ben’s ever seen, right there in front of the others. He doesn’t. The urge passes.

Eddie leans over and joins the investigation. Ben’s heartbeat begins to slow as the threat of exposure recedes, but then picks up again as Eddie brings the newspaper article out and the memories of the library flood back. _Don’t tell them. They’ll just think you’re totally out of your mind._ _Which you almost definitely are._ “What’s this, Ben?”

“Oh, that’s not school stuff.” He explains what’s explainable; that he’d been lonely, when he first moved here, lonely and curious about his new home, and what he’d discovered. Bill takes the file from him, long fingers brushing Ben’s hands. Ben watches him, his hair turning back to fiery-red at the tips, his full lips mouthing along softly to the words he’s reading. A way to practise overcoming his stammer? Perhaps.

They’re interrupted by Bev, who slides over and sits on Bill’s other side, and Ben swallows the unworthy feelings of jealousy again. _She’s not doing it to hurt you._ Bill looks at her, wide-eyed, like she’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. Ben can’t really blame him, but respectfully, he has to disagree. He thinks Bill’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

“Y-y-y-your hair….” Bill struggles, choking on the words, and Ben feels a surge of pity.

“Your hair is beautiful, Beverly,” he blurts, only trying to spare Bill. Bev grins and thanks him, but Bill looks him over like Ben just ran over his cat, and Ben gets the feeling that was the wrong way to handle things. Cursing his own stupid mouth, he tunes back into the conversation.

“Why is it all murders and missing kids?” Richie asks. Ben feels a shiver go through him. The air feels suddenly colder, though the sun still beats down.

“Derry’s….not like any town I’ve ever been in,” he begins. “People die or disappear here at six times the national average. And that’s just grown-ups. Kids are worse. Way, way worse.”


	3. Lucky Seven

Ben knew they wouldn’t quite understand. Stan and Richie and Eddie, at least. They are curious, Ben can see, awestruck, maybe, a little disturbed. But they haven’t seen what Ben has seen. He can’t blame them, or be angry about it; he’s glad. He knows what he saw in the library that hot summer’s afternoon will haunt him for the rest of his life.

They’re all gathered round the board in Ben’s room, Richie cracking jokes, Stan telling him to shut up with that crease appearing between his brows, Eddie examining the pictures with a look that’s halfway between fascination and horror. Ben watches Bill almost unwittingly, as if his eyes follow him of their own accord. He, and Bev, are not reacting like the others. Bill is especially quiet, holding a slide up to the light, eyes a thousand miles away. _When Bill’s brother hit the news -_

Ben wonders if perhaps Bill understands more than Ben knows, and the thought fills him with disquiet. He turns to check on Bev, to see if the same quiet ghosts are slipping over her face, and horror grips him.

She grins at him, raising her eyebrows. The poster glares at him accusingly. Ben tries to beg with his eyes, pleading.

_Holy Jesus, Bev, not right now, not in front of him!_

She laughs softly and her expression turns to – not pity, something warmer than that, more respectful, and she opens the door once again to hide his shame. He smiles, a grateful sigh slipping from his lips.

When Ben turns back to the rest of the group, Bill is holding up another slide, the map of Derry. His eyes are hard with grief, shining in the light, and his expression sends a cold feeling settling over Ben. He longs to know what happened with Bill’s brother, but the question sticks in his throat, even as Bill approaches him.

“W-w-where was the well-house?” He looks almost possessed. Ben swallows.

“I don’t know, somewhere in town, I guess… Why?”

Bill looks down, avoids eye contact. “Nothing.”

They stay at Ben’s place for the rest of the afternoon. Having friends over is a first for him, just one of several he’s experienced over the last few days, and he’s nervous at first, unsure how to entertain them. But once they’re settled in front of the TV with soda and the snacks from Richie’s backpack to happily rot their teeth with, everything goes smoothly. Once again, Ben is struck by just how easy it is to talk to these guys. His self-doubt, which for so long had been an ever-present brick tied round his ankle, is slowly disappearing.

Bill is still a thousand miles away. He stares out of the window, gazing sightless at the slowly sinking sun, face bathed in shades of gold and pale pink. Behind them, the TV spills tinny screams and explosions as the other kids talk, but once again Ben finds himself falling out of the loop of the conversation, unable to take his eyes off the taller boy with his auburn hair set aflame by the setting sun. He wants to reach into whatever far away world Bill’s found himself in, but he knows that wherever he is, it’s somewhere Ben can’t follow him.

The bag catches his eye, abandoned by Bill’s chair. Ben glances ‘round. The others are still either wrapped up in Terminator or talking to each other. Bill isn’t looking. The postcard is burning a hole in the pocket Ben slipped it in for safekeeping when they left the quarry. Ever so slowly, carefully, he takes it out and lowers it into Bill’s bag, then snatches his hand away as if scalded. The others don’t look up. Ben immediately feels the twinges of regret, the monologue of mortified terror grinding to a start in his mind, but Bill’s gaze falls from the window and back to Ben, and his chance to rectify his mistake is gone. He gives Bill a nervous half-smile and prays the postcard gets crumpled up beyond recognition or covered in spilt soda between Ben’s house and Bill’s.

 _Fat_ _chance._

Eddie is the first to move, explaining how his mother will have a cow if he comes home after dark. Richie offers to walk him home, mockingly, but then also realises he should be going, and after that they all admit defeat. Watching them all walk down the street from the porch, calling goodbye over their shoulders, Bev turning to wave, Ben’s face aches from smiling. He has promises to hang out tomorrow, demands for his phone number so they can call, things he’s never had before. The clown, Bowers, are all but forgotten.

Bill is the last to leave. He sits on the front porch steps as dusk gathers around the edges of the remaining daylight, waiting. Ben hovers in the doorway, unsure of how to proceed.

“Bill...you okay?”

Bill half-turns to look at Ben, then looks down again, ashamed. Ben can see the tear-tracks glistening on his cheeks in the half-light, but he doesn’t say anything. He knows too well the feeling of shame that comes with crying in front of others, when you just can’t control it, so you let the tears come and pray no-one else sees. He sits next to Bill, who drops his chin, shining droplets hanging there until a hand brushes them away. They sit there in silence for what feels like forever, until Ben finally summons the courage to ask.

“Is it….your brother?”

“W-who told you?”

“Richie...but he didn’t tell me anything, like details, or whatever. It was an accident. Don’t be mad at him.” Bill shrugs. He rests his chin on his knees, arms wrapped around his legs like he’s trying to hold himself together, the tears still silently sliding down his still face. There’s another pause.

“His name w-w-was…. _is_ ….G-G-G-Georgie.” The name is particularly hard to get out, like it’s stuck in there, always on the tip of his tongue, never leaving him alone. “He went m-m-missing in October. In a s-s-storm. They th-think….he muh-must have got w-w-w-w...” He screws up his face, the word constantly forming and then escaping him again. “Shit!”

“Washed away,” Ben completes for him gently. The silent tears turn to noisy sobs, and Ben can’t blame him. Images of screaming kids being washed down into the dark fill his head, and he can’t decide whether he wants to hold Bill until he stops crying, or throw up. _Or both._ Instead, he lays a hand on Bill’s shoulder, feeling his sobs vibrate through him violently. Bill leans in to him a little, and Ben, surprised but not unhappy by this display, wraps one arm around his shaking shoulders. They stay like that, Bill shaking and sobbing into Ben’s shoulder, until at last he calms down enough to speak again, heaving gulps of air. He pulls away, blushing as he looks into Ben’s eyes again, roughly rubbing tears from his face. “S-s-sorry.”

“It’s fine. _I’m_ sorry. I didn’t know seeing all my stuff would make you think about...” Thank God it’s not light enough for him to see how red Ben is. Bill is red-faced too, but from the crying.

“It’s n-not your fault. They s-say he got w-w-washed away b-but...we would have found him by now. I t-t-think something else happened to him. I think it’s t-t-taking all the other kids, too.”

“It?” Ben feels cold again, though the evening is still warm. He thinks he hears laughter, drifting over the warm summer air like poison fumes.

***

Beverly calls at 10:00 the next morning. Ben’s mother hands him the phone with a smile.

“It’s Beverly Marsh, sweetie.” He can hear the implication behind the words. _A girl! My Ben, getting calls from a girl!_ He can see why she’s pleased, he just wishes she would stop grinning at him like he just scored a home run in the World Series.

“Hey, Bev, what’s up?”

“Can you come over? I need to show you something.” Her voice is wobbly, like she’s trying not to cry. Ben knows, at once, that something is wrong.

Riding to Bev’s place, Ben spots Bill by the side of the road, slumped on the curb as if waiting for someone, gazing at his hands. As Ben walks over he looks up, and Ben is shocked to see just how pale he looks, eyes red and swollen, deep bruise-like shadows under his eyes. _Oh, God. I hope it’s not the poem that’s got him all freaked out._

“Hey, Bill, you doing okay?”

“I...” Bill looks utterly lost, lips trembling. “L-l-last night, I saw...” Tears fill his eyes again, but before a horrified Ben can press him for further information, the shrill ring of bike bells announces the others.

“Hey, Big Bill! Haystack! You coming?” Richie yells over. Ben offers Bill a hand.

“Come on, we better see what’s up with Bev. She sounded pretty shook-up.” Bill nods, and grabs Ben’s hand. Despite his concern for Bill clouding his thoughts, Ben can’t help feeling a shiver of delight at the contact.

When they get to Bev’s, she’s waiting for them, running down the fire escape steps as soon as she hears them in the distance. She ushers them inside, leaving Richie complaining loudly at their retreating backs, and down the hallway to -

“Oh, God.” Eddie retches and turns away. Ben agrees with him.

“You guys can see it too?”

“Of course!” Stan splutters.

“My dad couldn’t see it. I thought I might be crazy.” Ben doesn’t see how Bev’s dad could possibly miss it. It’s everywhere, dripping from the curtains, pooling in the bath, covering the windows and turning the daylight into a hellish red glow, and the _smell -_

“Well if you’re crazy...then we’re all crazy.”

“We c-c-can’t leave it like this.” Ben looks up to Bill, looks at his still-pale but determined face, and knows he would follow him anywhere.

***

It takes an hour, maybe two, for the bathroom to start to reappear beneath the blood. It’s not easy; especially with Eddie’s constant complaining and theatrical retching. But finally, Ben and Stan are dragging away bags full of blood-soaked towels to the trash. Coming back in, Ben can hear voices and laughter from the bathroom, and recognises them Bill and Bev’s. The words are at first muffled, but then he catches “January embers,” and pauses, blood running cold.

“Is that from the play?” She sounds mystified.

“N-no, the p-p-poem.” Ben’s heartbeat echoes around the hall, rushing in his ears. Surely they’ll hear it, and find him listening here. He wants to run, but can’t, feet glued to the floor.

“Oh. I don’t know that much about poetry.” Ben doesn’t want to hear Bill’s response to that. He didn’t want to hear any of that, but it’s too late now. He should never have slipped the postcard in Bill’s bag. He should never have _written_ the postcard. Now Bill knows it’s not from Bev, he’ll start to wonder who it is from, and if he finds out… Ben can just picture the disgust on his face, and it makes him want to die more than he ever has in his life. The tears prick in the corners of his eyes, and he wills them away.

_Aw, poor little fat boy. Come join us, Ben. No poems down here. Down here, we just float._

Ben shivers. This time, he could have sworn he heard the voice, out loud. Gripped with a sudden overwhelming horror, he half-runs out of the stifling apartment and into the sunshine.

***

Richie wheels around them as they push their bikes down the road, his voice splitting right through Ben’s throbbing head. The headache came on almost as soon as they left Bev’s place, and now it’s rising to excruciating levels, aided by Richie’s whining.

“Hey, I wasn’t the one scrubbing the bathroom floor imaging that her sink went all Eddie’s-mom’s-vagina-on-Halloween -”

“She didn’t imagine it,” Bill says firmly, stopping in the middle of the road. The others all stop too. “I saw something too.”

“You saw blood too?” Stan asks incredulously. Bill shakes his head.

“Not blood. I saw...” He takes a deep breath. “I saw G-G-Georgie.” Ben feels a chill go through him. _It’s starting._ The thought comes from somewhere deep inside him, thought what _it_ might refer to, he has no idea. “It seemed so real. I mean, it seemed like him, b-but there was this -”

“The clown,” Eddie says grimly. “Yeah, I saw him too.”

 _The clown._ Ben’s back in the stuffy heat of the library, seeing something moving behind the rows of books. “Me too,” he manages to choke out. Bill looks at him with concerned surprise.

“Wait, can only virgins see this stuff? Is that why I’m not seeing this shit?” Richie interrupts. Ben lets out a shaky laugh as Bill rolls his eyes.

They hear the yelling before they see it. The blue Trans-Am parked by the side of the road, and the bike, abandoned near it, packages spilling from the basket.

“Oh, shit, that’s Belch Huggins’ car,” Eddie blurts out. “We should probably get out of here.”

“Isn’t that the h-homeschooled kid’s bike?” Bill asks.

“Yeah, that’s Mike’s,” Eddie nods.

“We have to help him!” Bev decides, eyes blazing.

“We should?” Richie asks, uncertain.

“Yes!”

“Come on,” Ben says forcefully, feeling reckless. They follow Bev into the trees one by one.

***

When they see Mike, it feels right. It feels complete. Ben offers a hand to pull him out of the river as the stones fly past, and he smiles as he stands. “Thanks.” It feels like an achievement, seeing Bowers lying there in the mud, bloody-faced and furious in defeat. When Bill turns and grins at Ben, he can fly, he can do anything. The seven of them, together, can do anything.

Triumphant, they walk through the Barrens together, past the clattering train tracks, through fields of knee-high grass and wild-flowers. Ben feels like the seven of them are an army, strong enough to protect each other, even against Bowers. Even against whatever is taking the kids. Mike is shaking his head.

“Thanks guys, but you shouldn’t have done that. He’ll be after you too now.”

“Nah,” Eddie replies, more casual than Ben’s ever known him considering he’s just been lobbing rocks at Belch Huggins’ head. “Bowers? He’s always after us.”

“I guess that’s one th-th-thing we all have in common,” Bill grins.

“Yeah, home-school,” says Richie. “Welcome to the Losers’ Club.”


	4. Every Twenty-Seven Years

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mike's parents are alive and well and andy muschietti can fight me

July Fourth. A scorching hot day, ordinarily the kind of day Ben would spend indoors, away from sweat and flies and too-revealing clothing, away from laughing, staring eyes. But today, he’s been invited to hang out with the other Losers, and the heat and humiliation suddenly seems negatable.

Ben spots them across the street strewn with streamers and choked with people, huddled around a wall covered in posters. As he weaves through the crowd, he can begin to make out the word ‘MISSING’ emblazoned at the top and the blurry picture of a young boy below it. Suddenly, the sun seems to have gone in, and Ben shivers.

“H-hey, Ben.” The sun is back, summoned by Bill’s smile, warming Ben to his core. He can’t help but grin back.

“Hi. What are you guys looking at?”

“Ed Corcoran,” Stan explains. “They think they found part of his hand, all chewed up near the standpipe.” He steps aside to give Ben a better view of the missing poster.

Ben swallows dryly. “He asked to borrow a pencil once,” he says in a small voice.

Bill’s eyes are far away again, lost in that place where no-one can follow him, that place that frightens Ben so much. He raises his hand to lift Corcoran’s poster aside, revealing the peeling, rotting older poster underneath, the missing girl grinning like a ghost. “It’s like she’s been f-f-forgotten now Corcoran’s missing,” he says, almost whispering.

“Is it ever gonna end?” Stan wonders aloud, sounding suddenly very lost and alone. The answer to his question is on the tip of Ben’s tongue, but their attention is drawn away from the posters by Richie, who stumbles away from a horn player in the band finally wrestling his instrument from the bespectacled boy’s grip. Bev sniggers.

“What are you guys talking about?” Eddie asks, rounding the corner with a dripping ice-cream cone in each hand. Richie takes one as he rejoins the group.

“What they always talk about,” he answers, disbelieving eyes rolling behind his glasses. Ben cannot blame him. God, if he could only be sceptical about all of this. He’d give anything.

“Actually, Mike and I think it _will_ end,” he half-tells Stan, and half-tells the others. “For a little while, at least.”

“What do you mean?” Bev queries.

Ben glances at Mike, who nods grimly and takes a deep breath, launching into the research he and his newest friend have been doing for the past few days, huddled together in a corner of the library with the librarian glancing suspiciously at them every so often.

“Ben and I went over all his data research, and some that I did for a school project, and we charted out all the big events. The ironworks explosion in 1908, the Bradley Gang in ‘35, and the Black Spot in ‘62. And now all these kids...”

Ben takes over.

“We realised that this stuff seems to happen -”

“Every twenty-seven years,” Bill finishes in unison with Ben. His eyes are luminous with some feverish intent as he looks into Ben’s. Ben swallows and nods.

***

It’s too creepy, standing discussing all of it next to the posters of the missing children in the dank, gloomy alley, so they move to the town square where clowns and acrobats tumble and juggle under the enormous shadow of the ugly plastic Paul Bunyan statue.

Eddie finishes his ice-cream.

“So, let me get this straight. It comes out from – wherever – to eat kids for like, a year, and then what? It just goes into hibernation?”

It’s Stan, perched on top of the bench’s backrest, who answers him. “Maybe it’s like...what do you call it? Cicadas. You know, the bugs that come out once every seventeen years.”

“My dad thinks this town is cursed,” Mike says solemnly. The other Losers listen with rapt attention, all instinctively feeling the same surety that Mike knows what he’s talking about, though none of them, not even Mike, full know why. “He says that all the bad things that happen in this town are because of one thing; an evil thing, that feeds off the people of Derry.”

Again, the sun is beating down, but Ben is ice cold.

Stan shakes his head. “But it can’t be one thing. We all saw something different.”

“Maybe,” Mike counters. “Or maybe it knows what scares us most, and that’s what we see.”

“I saw a leper,” Eddie pipes up. His eyes are wild and miles away. “He was like a walking infection.” Ben suppresses a sympathetic shudder of horror.

“But you _didn’t,”_ Stan contradicts. “Because it isn’t real. None of it is. Not Eddie’s leper, or Bill seeing Georgie, or the woman I keep seeing...”

Richie perks up instantly. “Is she hot?”

Stan looks at Richie like he just dropped from space. “ _No,_ Richie! She’s not hot!”

Ben stifles an inappropriate giggle and tries not to make eye contact with Bill, who is also trying not to laugh. There’s a moment of connection, of warm familiarity which disappears as Stan continues.

“Her face is all...messed up...” He trails off, clearly unable to articulate the nightmare further, and Ben is glad. He doesn’t want to know. He’s seen enough of this thing, this _It,_ to more than fill in the blanks. “None of this makes any sense,” Stan finally manages to choke out. “They’re all like bad dreams.”

“I don’t think so,” Mike protests firmly, looking up at Stan with as reassuring a smile as he can muster. “I know the difference between a dream and real life, okay?”

None of them argue. They all know, deep in some collective consciousness, that Mike is spot-on right.

***

The call comes the next morning, and when his mom hands him the receiver, Ben’s heart leaps at the voice on the other end.

“B-Ben, can you come to m-m-my place today? I need to talk to you guys about – a-about It. I think I nuh-know where It lives. Will you t-t-tell the others? And when you c-come, can you bring the s-s-slide? The one of Old D-Derry.”

Ben writes down the stuttered directions to Bill’s house with a shaking hand. Dread and delight grip him in equal measure – happiness at being the first to be called, chosen to bear the message, the first person Bill thought of. But also terror, at what Bill has in mind.

Ben feels a mounting sense of excitement as he leads the other Losers on their bikes to Bill’s house. When the first burning waves of love wash over you, even the most mundane connections to your beloved take on new significance, and the most average suburban lower-middle-class dwelling suddenly becomes a shining palace with the knowledge that the object of your affections sleeps there every night, wakes up there, plays and laughs and dreams there. So it is for Ben, though he’s disappointed to find that instead of Bill’s bedroom, the meeting place is to be the garage.

Bill comes over to Ben first, to his delight, though the serious expression on Bill’s face makes him look prematurely old, hardening his soft, sweet features.

“It w-was seeing your walls that g-got me thuh-thinking,” he says forcefully, the words speeding from his mouth despite the clumsy hesitations. “I l-l-looked at my dad’s m-maps and – well, l-let me just show all of you.”

Stan pins a blanket over the window to block out the sun as Ben helps Bill pin the map to the wall opposite the slide projector. The rumble of Mike closing the garage door makes Ben jump a little.

Ben takes the slide from his backpack with shaking fingers and hands it to Bill. Their fingers brush together, electricity jumping, and for the briefest second, Bill smiles at Ben. Then it’s gone, wiped out by his grimly determined expression.

Bill points out the black crosses on the map with shaking hands and voice, his pale face made ghostly by the ghoulish glow of the projector. “The storm drain. That’s w-where Georgie disappeared. There’s the ironworks...and the B-Black Spot. Everywhere It happens...it’s all c-connected by the sewers. And they all meet up at the -”

Ben sees it, and in his surprise blurts out in unison with Bill “- the well-house!”

“It’s in the house on Neibolt Street,” Stan realises.

“That creep-ass house where all the junkies and hobos like to sleep?” Richie asks as the rattle of Eddie’s inhaler fills the room. He takes a sharp gasp of it but still seems to struggle for breath.

“I hate that place,” Bev says softly. “It always feels like it’s watching me.”

“That’s where I saw it,” Eddie chokes out, sounding close to tears. “That’s where I saw the clown.”

“Tha-tha-that’s where _It_ lives.”

Ben can’t remember when the word changed from ‘it’ to ‘It’ in his mind, when it took on that extra, awful significance, but now he knows he’ll never see it the same way. The word is alien, unknowable, the sound of darkness and decay. _It._

Somewhere far away, Stan is saying, “I can’t imagine anything wanting to live there.”

The tension in the room is growing unbearable as they all stare at the black dot of the well-house, united in blood-freezing terror. Sweat trickles down Ben’s back, and his heart races like a runaway train. Suddenly, Eddie breaks the tension by breaking himself.

“Can we stop talking about this!? I can barely breathe – it’s summer – we’re kids – I can barely breathe, I’m having a fucking asthma attack – and I’m not doing this!” With that, he rips the map from the wall with one hand. Bill jumps up as if electrocuted.

“What the hell! Put the map back!”

“Mm-mm,” Eddie shakes his head, face screwed up with determination. Behind him, the slide changes with a harsh click. Ben’s stomach drops.

Another metallic click. And another, and another. The images on the wall flicker past. A little boy in a Little League uniform grins, ghostly, at Ben.

“What happened?” Bill asks, mystified.

The others Losers voice confusion, Mike checking the projector, but Bill is transfixed, staring at the photos flashing past, evidence of a happy life lost forever.

“Georgie,” he whispers.

The little boy beams back between his parents, but Ben’s attention is on Bill’s mother. Behind the fall of red hair over her face, he can see... _something._ Something grinning, coming further into view as the projector spins as if possessed, and Ben finally catches glimpse of the clown. The others are screaming, running, but Bill seems rooted to the spot, and the clown is reaching for him. Ben knows it’s just a projection. It can’t hurt him. But something flares up inside him, anger that It would even dare threaten Bill, and Ben grabs him, pushes him out of It’s path with a strength he never imagined he had.

“ _Turn it off!”_ Beverly shrieks behind him. Only Mike has the presence of mind to kick the projector over and the image of the clown careens sideways, the projector lying in a halo of spilled slides. The ghostly white light still covers the far wall but the clown is gone. No sound but Eddie’s gasps for breath.

***

They spill out into the sunshine as one terrified collective, witless with fear. Wide-eyed, Bill turns to Ben and then, surprisingly, hugs him. Ben freezes, stunned. He could swear he can feel Bill’s heartbeat through his shirt.

“Thanks, Ben,” Bill whispers in his ear, then pulls away. The others don’t appear to have noticed, naturally somewhat distracted.

“It saw us,” Eddie chokes out. “It saw us, and It knows where we are!”

“It always knew,” Bill half-snaps, obviously frustrated with Eddie’s fear. Ben can’t blame Eddie, though. This whole thing is fucked up, but Bill hardly seems frightened at all. “S-s-so let’s go.”

“Go?” Ben asks, though he knows the answer. “Go where?”

“Neibolt,” Bill replies firmly. “T-that’s where G-G-G-Georgie is.” There’s a sour, swirling feeling in the pit of Ben’s stomach. _Holy Jesus, he means it._

“After _that?_ ” Stan asks, disbelieving, exhausted.

“Yeah, it’s summer,” Richie mumbled half-heartedly. “We should be outside -”

“If you say it’s summer one more _f-f-fucking_ time -!” Bill shakes his head and grabs Silver. Paralysed with fear, not for himself now but for Bill, Ben can do nothing but yell at his retreating back.

“Bill! _Wait!_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry if this chapter felt like i was just writing out the film, it's getting more difficult not to follow the film too closely as it gets closer to the end. i cut some stuff like pennywise jumping out of the projector because a) it's dumb and not scary, sorry, and b) i wanted to change at least something because no-one wants to just read the film. also sorry this was a long time coming, updating is hard for me as i have a low attention span and i tend to switch interests often, but thanks for sticking with me :) next stop, neibolt!


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